


Something Strange

by MagusLibera



Series: My Only Regret [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - College/University, Balcony Buddies, College, F/M, Falling In Love, I will eventually continue this, Pre-island, Quarantine and Chill Fic Drive (Arrow TV 2012), Tutoring, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23737213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagusLibera/pseuds/MagusLibera
Summary: A killer is on the loose in Boston, sending MIT, Cambridgeport and Harvard into a lockdown. Felicity is stuck with only her pretentious, partying across-the-street, neighbour for company.Maybe he is not so bad.
Relationships: Oliver Queen/Felicity Smoak
Series: My Only Regret [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1632619
Comments: 41
Kudos: 159
Collections: Quarantine and Chill Fic Drive 2020





	Something Strange

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Another Q&C fic here! And I waited until after midnight to post. No, I didn't just wait so that I wouldn't post on the 19th, that would be silly.
> 
> This fic marks my 200,000th word on AO3. It's not a lot in the grand scheme of things - there are single fics that are longer - but I'm pretty proud of myself. That's longer than Deathly Hallows (yes I measure things in Harry Potter).
> 
> This is also another My Only Regret fic. It is in no way a prequel or sequel to Bullet Holes so can be read completely separately, it's just another way that Oliver could have told Felicity he loves her sooner and will probably be around 5 chapters once I come back to it.

Felicity groans into her pillow as she tries to bury herself further into it. Nothing is working. _Nothing_. There is absolutely nothing that she has been able to find or do that can drown out the incessant _banging_ and _thudding_ and _screaming_ that is coming from the apartment opposite hers.

Every night. _Every single night_ since she moved into this apartment over spring break, the noises have been screeching their way through her closed windows without fail. She had hoped that the end of the semester and subsequent summer holidays would bring an end to it but _oh no_ , the arsehole she shares an elevation with apparently did not return home. She can only assume that it is because he failed his exams thanks to the excessive partying and significant lack of sleep and is having to attend summer school.

And he is an arsehole. Felicity has confirmation, she has spoken to him.

*************************

Really, she blames Cooper for all of this. Thought, to be fair, she blames Cooper for a lot of things. At the start of the autumn semester, she had found herself sharing a class with him. Handsome, kind, interested in the goth girl two to three years younger than most of her sophomore classmates. Cooper had been different too, intelligent like her and an early entrant into university, though he was only a year ahead not two, like Felicity. He had understood so much of what Felicity has felt for her entire life, being both smarter and younger than all of her peers and, best of all, he had a passion for computer science. In particular, hacking.

So of course, she had fallen for him hook, line and sinker. Very quickly it had become apparent that Cooper was less interested in her as a girlfriend and as a person than he was as a partner in crime. She was just think-tank for his anarchist plans, really. So she had left him, taken the plans for an x-axis bi-numeric algorithm with incredible capabilities with her and decided to re-evaluate her life.

In her re-evaluation, she had made some major decisions. She had ditched the goth look upon the realisation that she was using it to cover up some major insecurities, mostly created by her father. She didn’t want to be dark and gloomy anymore, she wanted to be bright and sunny. She had decided to start coding legitimately, making apps and software for various companies and only hacking when she was paid to legally do so. And with those decisions came an influx of money, her side jobs paying way more than her tutoring ever has and that, combined with the fact that she has no tuition debt thanks to a full scholarship with MIT, is why she was able to afford a small, but off campus single bed apartment all of her own.

An apartment that she now regrets buying. It is a fifth floor apartment of a twelve floor building, but the building across from her is a five floor apartment building that specialises in large, expensive homes. And the penthouse is owned by some college frat boy whose daddy has more money than sense and who loves to drink and party more than anything else. And that penthouse is directly across from Felicity’s new home. Specifically, her new bedroom.

And when he is not keeping her up all night (with the noise from his parties, not from anything else; that is _never_ going to happen no matter how pretty he may be) he is disrupting her study with innumerable arguments with a woman who may or may not be his girlfriend. Not that it surprises Felicity that the two of them argue all the time. From what she can tell, the concept of fidelity has never even crossed his mind. She is unsure of exactly how often the gorgeous brunette and her neighbour are actually together, but considering there is a new girl leaving his penthouse pretty much every morning, their long distance relationship is clearly not working out.

The only relief that she has is that she will never have to put up with him during her day to day life on campus. She knows that he attends Harvard, based on the sports apparel that he struts around in. How he can possibly do sports, she will never know. He must just have a constant hangover and his liver must be half destroyed, but somehow he is still cut and healthy. A fact that she only knows because he has a penchant for lounging on his balcony without a shirt on, not because she has been looking.

When they argue he is almost always shirtless. For months after moving in, Felicity had kept her mouth shut, powering through each night with the knowledge that it would not be long until the semester was over and he moved out. Instead, the end of the semester had come and he is still here. About a week into the realisation that she would not be escaping him, she had lost it.

That morning, she had made her way onto her own balcony, speaker system in tow, and had started blasting the loudest, rudest playlist she could find on full volume, directly at his bedroom window. His reaction had almost made the entire experience worth it. Bleary eyed, he had staggered out in only his boxers, his ridiculous but no doubt expensive haircut an absolute mess and she could see how bloodshot his eyes were even with a street between them. Something she expected, as he had only been asleep for an hour and a half.

After a minute of dazed blinking at the morning sunlight – something that he clearly had not seen in years – he had focused on her, eyes narrowing. His use of profanities had been creative. They had also awakened his overnight guest, making her screech her displeasure and run from the penthouse, much to Felicity’s amusement.

It had been so satisfying that Felicity had made the decision to do it regularly. Well, maybe it was stooping to his level but it also made the lack of sleep he was forcing on her so much more worth it.

And thus began their little competition. He tries to be as loud, obnoxious and interruptive as physically possible and in retaliation, she will wake him up as soon as he has been asleep for long enough for it to have maximum impact. And then they will yell at one another from across the street, her in her pyjamas, freshly awake, and him in his boxers, rudely awakened. Felicity is honestly surprised that none of their other neighbours have complained yet.

**************************

Until one night, only a couple of weeks after Felicity’s eighteenth birthday – the birthday that has enabled her to stay in Boston over the summer, unlike last year when her mother had dragged her home – when Felicity sleeps. She sleeps, and sleeps and sleeps. Peacefully, restfully, uninterrupted. No party. For the first time in months, not even so much as a get together. Just peace and quiet.

She feels at a loss for what to do with herself, and finds herself walking over to her balcony. She has grown so used to starting her day with an invigorating shouting match that she does not really know what to do without it. Sipping her coffee and nibbling on a bagel, she just takes in the morning, truly enjoying the benefits of her apartment for the first time ever. The sun shines high, making the entire world look like a picture, the streets are calm and empty, nobody moving.

Nobody in the streets.

Now that catches her attention too. The streets are _always_ busy. She runs to her computer system, pulling up the news with a quick search.

_CAMBRIDGEPORT, MIT AND HARVARD ON LOCKDOWN AS SERIAL KILLER ESCAPES_

It does not quite compute with her. She has to read through the article several times over before she can make any sense of it. A prison transport unit crashed the evening before, allowing a dangerous serial killer free. And the woman is dangerous enough that the police had immediately put the entire MIT campus and the nearby community, including her new home, on lockdown.

Suddenly, everything makes sense. The lack of a party, the quiet night and morning, it was not due to any consideration on Hot Neighbour’s part, but due to him being physically unable to have anybody over. Felicity does not know whether to be disappointed or overjoyed.

She wanders back out onto the campus as she awaits a message from MIT as to what the plan is going forwards, and gleefully thinks about everything that she will be able to get done with this unprecedented free time. And then her morning gets even stranger. Buff Neighbour is _awake_. Naturally, without any interference from her, he is up. Shirtless, of course, but with joggers on and he is… he is very sweaty. Like he has been working out.

She is so caught up with drooling over his very drool worthy body that she misses the fact that he is wandering out onto the balcony, and he is looking straight at her. He is looking at her funny, and she struggles to work out why but then she realises that he is not looking at her strangely at all. He is just looking at her without any animosity in his gaze.

“Hi.” He says, a normal volume. Felicity does not think she has ever heard him at a volume below yelling before. He has a very nice voice. “No music this morning?”

Is he teasing her? “No party last night?” she returns.

He gestures to the empty street, “Not exactly anybody around to party with.” After a pause, he asks, “Is that why there was no music? Because there was no party.”

“Why else did you think I was playing the music?” Felicity asks.

“I don’t know. I guess I kind of knew but a big part of me though maybe you were into me and wanted to scare off the girls because you were jealous.”

Felicity scoffs at his arrogance, “Ego, much?”

“Yeah. Kinda.” He smiles at her but, again, there is something wrong with it. There is no malice in it, it is not a smirk, it is not a victorious grin at waking her up or successfully insulting her, it is just a smile. Maybe… maybe even a _bashful_ one.

“Well, I was just objecting to your insistence at keeping the neighbourhood up night in night out with the racket from those parties and the screaming matches you like to get in with your girlfriend.” She huffs.

He frowns, “My girlfriend?”

Of course that would be the part he picks up on, “Yeah. Tall, brunette, shows up every few weeks to yell at you?” has he already forgotten about her existence? Well, that would explain the cheating at least.

“Oh, you mean Laurel.” Felicity does not know the woman’s name but she nods anyway, “Yeah, Laurel’s not my girlfriend. Not anymore.” Felicity is pretty sure that he has said that before, and that it has swiftly changed not long after. Several times.

“You go to MIT?” he asks, nodding towards her MIT jumper as he changes the subject. Felicity just nods again, not understanding why he is trying to make small talk with her. “What do you study?”

“Uh… Computer Sciences and Cyber Security.” Felicity answers.

“That’s cool. I’m doing Business. You a freshman? You look like a freshman.” Felicity does look like a freshman. Mostly because she is the same age as many of next year’s freshmen will be. Just barely. But she has two years of university solidly under her belt and is set to start some of her masters credits in the next one. If all goes well, she will complete duel bachelors and masters degrees in the same amount of time that most people complete one bachelors, and all before she hits twenty.

“No. I just finished my sophomore year.” Felicity says, offering the simple explanation that she usually defaults to.

“No way!” he says, “You’re twenty?”

“No, I just turned eighteen.”

She can see his eyebrows raise from all the way over on her balcony, “Ah. That makes sense. You’re a smart one, huh?” Wary of the teasing that she has received ever since she skipped first grade – before that, even, when she was talking about computers in kindergarten and nobody had a clue what she was going on about – Felicity gives a slow nod in response again.

“I can see why you hate me so much.” He continues, brushing past her lacklustre response, “Keeping you up when you’re working so hard. Partying around instead of studying. Here at my fourth Ivy League college which is, in my father’s words, my ‘last chance’ before he stops bailing me out.” He laughs self depreciatingly. It makes Felicity reassess him. Is he entitled? Without a doubt. Is he arrogant and the exact sort of person who would come into Felicity’s mother’s casinos and take and take and take without thought of consequence because he has all of the money in the world and nobody to hold him responsible? Of course. But there is something else there. A boy, so frightened of failure that he is intentionally causing it, so desperate for attention that he is lashing out to get it.

In all likelihood, he has been bailed out of everything in his life by his parents. They will have paid off teachers and cops and anyone necessary to get him out of trouble and uphold the family name, they will have bought his way into those four universities and handed him everything without ever teaching him the value of hard work. They were probably around almost never as he was growing up, only nannies and housekeepers and the only way that he knows how to get their attention is to cause trouble. Felicity would know. She has seen a hundred men like him while waiting for her mother to finish work.

Something about the self-hatred he is trying to hide from the world, the embarrassment that she can see behind his grin and his fake-bright eyes, it calls to her. There is a lot about them that is different, but at the end of it all, they are just two people who feel separate from their parents. Who want the unconditional love and attention that other parents offer. Donna Smoak has tried her hardest, and Felicity can now recognise how much her mother has done for her, but she has never understood Felicity. She loves her but she never accepts her for who she is.

Felicity is unsure what makes her say it, whether it is her seeing something of herself in the man across the street from her, or whether it is a selfish part of her hoping to shut the man who has made her life hell up, but when she opens her mouth, she knows that what she is about to say will change something.

“You know we could be stuck here for a while? If you ever wanted to talk or if you want a tutor to help you not drop out of a fourth school, you can just ask me.” She is shocked that she actually said it, “I’m Felicity.”

“Really?” something in him lights up, “You want to help me study?”

“I mean… sure?” it is more of a question than an answer but he takes it as one.

“I would l- I would really like that.” He stares at her, “Felicity.” He adds on. The way that he says her name sends a shiver down her spine. He draws out all four syllables slowly, _Fe-li-ci-ty_ , she has never liked her name so much as in that moment.

“Okay.” Felicity nods again, awkwardness overcoming her, “Okay. Well… I’m just going to… yeah.” She retreats back into her apartment without another word. She does _not_ look back at him. She definitely does not see him staring in a way that almost seems forlorn at the spot he last saw her.

*************************

The day is even more productive than Felicity had hoped. She gets so much done that, for a minute, she wonders if she did too much, but then she remembers how much she still has left and brushes that thought aside. She does not think about how her neighbour did not even give her his name, and that he has not contacted her, so must have just been being polite when he said he would like to be her lockdown study buddy. She does not think about it at all.

By the next morning, her body clock is feeling thrown by two nights of solid sleep in a row. She feels more tired than before, if anything and it is frustrating her no end. But when she steps out into the sunlight for her breakfast, once again, Cute Neighbour is waiting, still shiny from a workout, with that adorable little smile on his face.

“Hi, Felicity!” he chirps, far too chipper for the morning. Frustration bubbles in Felicity that this man, who has been living on a practically nocturnal schedule for the entire time she has lived across from him, can still manage to be an early riser when he is not up all night. “I realised I forgot to give you my number yesterday morning, would you mind if I…” he holds up a bundle of something, and Felicity does not know what he is asking permission for but she gives it anyway. “Okay,” he unwraps whatever is in his hand, “Can you catch stuff?”

“Sometimes.” She admits.

“Okay, well if it takes a few tries, that’s fine, but I need you to catch this.” And then he is throwing. His aim is excellent. It is so good that it makes up for Felicity’s horrible catching skills and she is able to close her hands around the object.

It is a cylinder of some sort. Like a capsule. Maybe an old container or something, and it is securely attached to a length of rope, the opposite end of which is still in Oliver’s hands. He moves, twisting the rope and then letting go. It stays where it is, he must have tied it to something. What is he doing?

“Here, untie the end of the rope and then tie it to that hook there,” he points at a hook sticking out from the balcony wall, “That way, we can use that,” he points at the cylinder in her hand, “To send things to one another. For example, phone numbers!” he looks so pleased with himself. Felicity has to admit, it is a good idea. She can send him study materials like this.

She ties up the rope, making sure it is secure and then opens the container. Inside is a folded up piece of paper, his phone number and his name – Oliver Queen, and a small bag of freshly ground coffee.

She looks up in surprise to see him – Oliver – wringing his hands together nervously, “I noticed that you drink coffee a lot, so I ground up some for you.” He… he noticed that?

“Thank you.”

“It’s the least I could do. You did offer to help me get my dad off my back, after all!” he grins, nerves dissipating. “I mean, obviously I’ll pay you too, but I thought you’d like the coffee so… yeah.” He trails off.

“You don’t need to pay me. It will keep me busy while we’re stuck here. Really, you’re the one doing me a favour.” She insists, not quite knowing why as the money would definitely help out her bank account, but for some reason she feels uncomfortable at the idea of him paying her for her help.

“Well I have to do something.” Felicity gets a weird flash of old western movies where the protagonist would save a damsel and then the damsel would insist on thanking him in some way and then he would ask for a kiss. Felicity always rolled her eyes at the sexism in those movies, but looking at Oliver’s plush lips, she finds herself understanding the motivations of those heroes.

Shaking the thought from her head, she thinks up a solution, “How about you be my personal trainer and I’ll be your personal tutor? You’re… very shapely.” She gulps, distracted enough that she misses the pride that crosses his face as she checks him out inadvertently, “You could help me out.” What is _she_ doing? She does not want to exercise at the best of times, let alone when she has an excuse to be holed up at home all day doing nothing. Another look at his abs reminds her.

He looks over the moon, “That would be great!”

*************************

They settle into a routine. Every morning, she drags herself out of bed at half seven so that she can be on the balcony, some of Oliver’s utterly delicious ground coffee in hand, for a workout. He never even breaks a sweat as she practically dies under his tutelage, and usually continues for an hour after with his own workout in his private gym – because of course he has a private gym – when she stops to go and shower. Then, the two of them settle in for the morning and she helps him through his summer school work for his business degree. She was right, he is at risk of being kicked out of his fourth school, at the age of just twenty-two, in as many years. Because he has restarted so many times, he still has another two years to complete but only if he can pass the summer credits.

They take their lunches together, just talking as the morning turns into the afternoon before Felicity goes inside to do her own work. This Oliver, a sober, not hungover Oliver without his so called friends around him, is somebody Felicity actually likes. Behind all of the bravado and pomp, there is a kind, thoughtful and loving man. His devotion to his little sister, who is just twelve, is admirable and he clearly adores his best friend Tommy, lamenting their forced separation on more than one occasion.

She was right about his family circumstances too, and as for his ex-girlfriend, she can see that it upsets him to hurt her every time he cheats on her, but she can also see that he does not want the serious relationship that she does and he is lashing out as a result. Their relationship, to Felicity at least, is toxic. A vicious cycle that just keeps hurting the both of them. She keeps that to herself though.

Oliver does seems remorseful about keeping her awake for months too. Felicity realises that he is not vindictive, just ignorant to those around him and she tries to remind him in the kindest way that nightly house raves are not exactly good neighbour decorum. He apologises a lot about that.

In the nine days that they are kept there, she realises that he has become her friend and she feels her heart sink at the thought of losing that. When the news comes that the killer has been caught, they are both eating dinner together, because they started doing that too around the fifth day, and she thinks that Oliver looks a little disappointed. But maybe that was just her projecting her own disappointment onto him.

When they separate to go to bed, he looks up at her, something deep in his eyes and says, “I’ll see you tomorrow, Felicity.”

She replies, “See you tomorrow, Oliver.” And his whole countenance lights up at just those words before he wishes her a good night.

She dreams of him that night, as she sleeps soundly for a solid eight hours, body finally used to a full night’s rest.

**Author's Note:**

> NO CLIFFHANGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> Yes, that is an achievement for me now. I'm so proud of myself.
> 
> Like I said, I'm definitely coming back to this one for a few more chapters. They're planned out and everything I just need to write them.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed! And I hope you're safe. Remember to wash your hands and do all of the social distancing, quarantining and self isolation possible.
> 
> I'm on Twitter [@MagusLibera](https://twitter.com/MagusLibera).


End file.
